Business Incubation Strategy of High-Tech Venture Firms in a Science Park - Technopolis: Best Practices for Science and Technology Cities - page 153

Table 1 Sectoral comparison of R&D centers; number (employee)
Description Public sector Private sector Total
Comprehensive R&D 4 (1,230) 1 (83) 5 (1,313)
Biotechnology 4 (482) 5 (455) 9 (937)
Information technology 3 (2,655) 5 (848) 8 (3,503)
Precision chemical 1 (403) 9 (1,672) 10 (2,075)
New material (including high molecule) 5 (549) 5 (549)
Mechatronics (including marine science) 2 (571) 2 (305) 4 (876)
Resource, energy development 5 (2,173) 2 (76) 7 (2,249)
Astronomy, aerospace, astronautics 3 (806) 1 (109) 4 (915)
The others 6 (2,483) 2 (112) 8 (2,595)
Total 28 (10,803) 32 (4,209) 60 (15,012)
Source DAEDEOK INNOPOLIS Management Office, 2004 ( http://ddinnopolis.or.kr/ )
2004. From the late 1980s, private sector research institutes began to relocate from
the Capital Region into DST, which resulted from the changed objective of gov-
ernment that promoted applied research by private R&D center. Private sector
substantially has been higher than public sector in the R&D centers since 1992.
Table 1 shows the increasing development of R&D centers and their employees.
Since private institutes carried out R&D for their mother enterprise, they had
more interest in the technological innovation and profits of the mother enterprise
than in public benefit. These attributes of private institutes made R&D activities in
DST more subdivided and varied. This variety of activities is important, because it
suggests the potential for future development in DST as well Daejeon, as it can be
attractive to a wide range of research-focused technologically advanced and
innovative organizations. For example, the R&D fields in private R&D labs in
2005 were more subdivided than those of 1992. There are 32 private labs in 12
fields related with particular industrial sectors like IT, BT, NT etc. As R&D
activities of private institutes became subdivided and varied, the potentiality of
DST for technology commercialization has increased.
4.2 Spin-Off Activities and Growth of High-Tech Venture
Firms
Recently, active spin-offs are increasing in the research institutes and universities
in DST. Although several previous assessments indicated that the mere concen-
tration of public and private research organizations in a space could not generate
the inertia for high technology spin-offs, DST is a case where this is not so.
Significant sources of technology-oriented new ventures are being generated.
Actually, 7.1 % of total venture firms in Korea is located in Daejeon City and
Chungnam Province (6 % in Daejeon, 1.1 % in Chungnam Province). It is the
highest concentration outside the Capital Region (Seoul Metropolitan Area).